Helping each other master the art of a senior life.

November: Remembering Bobby Fleisher

The sadness of losing my dear friend and writing partner, Bobby Fleisher, on October 29 is more than balanced by the appreciation for her life. When we started this blog and, soon after began writing our book about women, we looked among contemporaries for role models: women who live their senior lives with strength, courage, and flair. I didn’t have to look far – Bobby was the quintessential role model for so many people, and for so many years.

Instead of The New Senior Woman: Reinventing the Years Beyond Mid-Life, we wanted to call our book “Mastering the Art of a Senior Life.” In the book, Bobby wrote, “The science is up to our doctors; the art is up to us.”

Bobby expressed that art even as she relied on a wonderful team of doctors she respected for several years of treatment. Few friends were even aware of her declining health because complaining and, as she would say, “doom and gloom” were not to be tolerated or voiced. More than most people, she was able to infuse her gift of time with meaning until the very end. Her very last months and weeks were filled with contacts with her loving children and grandchildren and knowing through the miracle of technology her first great grandchild. As always, she knitted, even organizing the making of a blanket of squares by the extended family for the newborn and starting a set for the not yet conceived great grandchild to be, and, as her daughter would say, “knitting the family together.”

A long life filled with personal and professional accomplishment, with a wonderful marriage, with loving family and friends, with laughter and fun as well as difficult challenges, and with students and strangers who benefitted from her commitment to making so many lives better can only be celebrated.

You will hear Bobby’s voice again in our soon to be finished second book, “The New Senior Man” where her wit and wisdom are again evident. Her life and example encourage all of us to never stop learning and growing, to embrace life, to keep giving. Treasure life this Thanksgiving.

This morning the news of Bobby Fleisher’s passing came as a shock. The Elder Chicks blog became part of my life after I read “The New Senior Woman” two years ago. I know she will be missed by her writing partner, Thelma Reese, and certainly by thousands of readers like me. Her legacy remains through her written words.
Joan Reidjoan.reid@yahoo.com

Losing Bobby was a shock as I had only heard about her illness within the last month or so. Bobby helped me with my knitting project of making squares, assembling them in afghans, and distributing them to women in a halfway house in North Philly known as Hannah House. Bobby (and her friend Marilyn) organized middle school kids in an after school program in Florida, teaching them to knit and make squares, transforming them into a magnificent afghan. Later Bobby presented the completed afghan to Hannah House and the women there were amazed. She always gave of herself in a loving way with class. She will surely be missed by all those who knew her. My deepest sympathies and condolences to her family and friends. May the memories of Bobby’s life be a source of strength to all!!

Bobby was my mentor and my friend. She inspired me in every way. She will live forever in my heart. She is never to be forgotten. I still remember when she reached out to me to interview me for a chapter in “The New Senior Woman.” It was such an honor. She was a rock.

So sorry to hear about her passing. The book “The New Senior Women” inspired me to have a positive attitude about ageing, so their words meant a lot to me. I am approaching 75 and hope to have her strength and compassion to go on when all my friends and relatives are passing on.

I am so sorry to hear of Bobby’s passing. I was so proud to be included in “The New Senior Women”, and have considered both of you role models even though today, at 87, I am older than both of you. It is hard to lose someone who means so much to you. My condolences to you and Bobby’s family.

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